She’d kicked off her shoes. Now she pushed the zip and stepped out of her jeans as if it was the most natural movement in the world.
Her panties matched her bra.
He’d forgotten how to breathe.
‘Not all the welfare bins held hand-me-downs,’ she said, totally unselfconscious, grinning at the look on his face. ‘A gorgeous Swiss lingerie company sent a care box. You like?’
Did he like? He was speechless. She was standing barefoot on the grass under the blossom tree, smiling up at him, all imp, in the most beautiful lingerie he’d ever seen. In the most beautiful body he’d ever seen. The contrast to the woman he’d met-how many hours ago?-was stunning.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he said, and it was totally inadequate.
‘My undies are beautiful,’ she corrected him, and he tilted her chin and gazed straight into her eyes and he shook his head.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he repeated, so strongly she had to believe him. ‘But this… Are you sure? Tori, I want you tonight, I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in this lifetime. But I do need to go back to the States…’
‘Your medicine’s in the States,’ she whispered, and she met his gaze directly, clear and true. Knowing, as he did, that this was far too soon for any decision to be made as to a future. ‘This is no five-minute date, Jake, but neither is it any kind of commitment. This is seduction, need, call it what you will, but it’s for tonight. It’s your need and mine, for tonight and tonight only.
‘I trust you,’ she said steadily-and she knew she was right. For this night, trust had returned with a vengeance. She thought suddenly of Jake’s father, of the elderly doctor she’d known and loved, and she knew that no matter how little he’d known him, Jake truly was his son.
Jake… A stranger, yet not.
Here, now, he was hers.
‘I’m as sure as anything I’ve ever known,’ she whispered. ‘My body wants you. I want you.’ And she fumbled with the catch to her bra.
But he was before her, unfastening the clasp, then cupping her breasts, caressing, holding, teasing her nipples, sending fire surging through her body, blocking out all else.
This was so right. This was…now.
Crazy but right. Stupid but wonderful.
Perfect for now.
Her body was on fire.
Not crazy. Not stupid.
Perfect.
He was touching each nipple in turn with his lips, reverent, wondering, and she arched back, hot with want. It felt so good, so wonderful, to be lifted out of the past six months, to feel the grey fading away like some forgotten nightmare.
Her body was surging to his touch, a bud unfurling in a blast of heat, coming to life in ways she’d never felt before.
Jake.
She should be embarrassed. She should at least be a little self-conscious.
She felt nothing but right. His gaze told her she was beautiful and for tonight she believed that message absolutely.
‘I believe things are a little unequal,’ she managed, and somehow she unfastened his shirt, button by button, a slow, inexorable path of exploration, while he kissed her lips, her breasts, the nape of her neck, trailing kisses downwards while she tried to concentrate on undressing him. His shirt was gone, his belt, his chinos, and then, finally, he was kicking them aside and all his clothes had disappeared. Her skin met his as he tugged her close, closer, her body curved into his and fell onto the bed of soft, lush grass.
They gasped as one as the coolness of the grass met their bodies. They were clinging to each other for warmth, for heat, waiting for the loving to take over and for the cool of the night to disappear.
As it did. As it must.
She wanted him. She ached for him as he kissed her, deeply, searchingly, wonderfully, as his fingers explored every contour of her body, as her breasts moulded to him, as their heartbeats synchronised.
She wanted him, wanted him, wanted him…
Skin against skin, full-length, she had him all. He was hers.
She was riding his body, mounting him, holding him hard under her. She was aching, aching.
‘Tori,’ he whispered, and then he groaned and then there was no space for words at all. For finally, searingly, wondrously, he was a part of her. His rhythm was her rhythm, his body was her body-skin merging into skin, body merging into body, and the night was dissolving in a haze of heat and want and pure, wondrous delight.
She loved. For tonight, she even trusted. For tonight, this was her man.
CHAPTER SIX
S OMEWHERE towards dawn they made their way back to the lodge. Jake drove. Tori sort of…wafted. She felt beautiful. She felt cherished. More.
She felt as if her world had transformed-like the grey had shifted and the sun was shining through. It marked an end of the dreariness, she thought, and as Jake refused to let her walk but carried her from the car to the house-and that meant carrying Rusty as well because she wasn’t letting him go-she felt as if she’d moved to another life.
The dawn was beginning to glimmer over the mountains. When the household woke, life would begin again.
Life on the other side…
‘You’re smiling like the cat that got the cream,’ he murmured, as he climbed the verandah steps and her smile broadened.
‘I believe I am. I believe I did.’
‘Tori…’
‘No.’ She reached up and touched his lips. ‘Not a word. Nothing. That was just…perfect. It woke me up. It was like life started again. I don’t know if you can understand…’
‘All I understand is that you’re beautiful. Can I carry you to my bedroom?’
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t want to wake up beside you.’
Something shuttered in his face-an expression she didn’t like. Pain? No. It was a closing of something that had barely started to open.
‘Jake, no,’ she said, swiftly-she did not want to hurt this man but this was important. She was struggling to explain it, struggling to understand it herself, but somehow she had to find words for what she was feeling. ‘What happened tonight was magic, time out of frame. I needed it so much-I needed you-and I’ll be grateful for the rest of my life. But if I wake up beside you in the morning…’
‘It is morning.’
‘You know what I mean. If I wake up beside you, then I might hold and cling. I might even get needy. I don’t want that. I don’t want anything to mess with what we had tonight.’
I don’t want to fall in love.
Where had that come from? No matter, it was there, hovering between them as if both had thought it. Who knew what Jake was thinking, but she felt it, knew it, and accepted that it was to be feared.
Love… After one night? She didn’t think so.
She knew she had to move on. Somehow Jake seemed to have given her the strength to do just that, and she would not mess with it.
‘I loved tonight,’ she whispered. ‘Tonight I loved you. But we both know our worlds don’t fit together. Let’s just accept tonight’s magic and move on.’
‘I’m not sure I can.’ He was pushing open the door to her bedroom with his foot. ‘To leave you here…’
‘It’s what I want.’ Was it? No, part of her was screaming, but the rest of her was sensible and it had to be sensible for all of her.
‘You’re so…’
‘And so are you.’ And then she paused. They both paused.
Tori’s room was right at the end of the house. The room next to hers was Doreen’s. From the other side of the wall came the muffled sound of terror. Whimpering, sobs of fear. Real pain.
They couldn’t ignore it. Neither of them could. Tori slid down from Jake’s arms and slipped Rusty onto the bed, but before she’d straightened Jake was heading out the door.
She reached him before he reached Doreen’s door, tugging him back.
‘Let me. She knows me.’ She knocked. ‘Doreen, it’s Tori. Can I come in?’
‘I… No. Oh, my dear, did I wake yo
u?’ It was a breathless gasp. ‘I’m so sorry.’
For answer Tori opened the door a sliver. Jake was beside her, but she motioned him to stay where he was. She slipped in, but she left the door open, just a little, so Jake could hear.
‘Doreen, what’s wrong?’ she asked, and then, as her eyes grew accustomed to the dim light and she made out the figure huddled among the vast nest of pillows, her heart wrenched. She was with her in a heartbeat, gathering the elderly woman to her, simply holding.
‘Oh, my dear, don’t tell Glenda,’ Doreen gasped.
Jake stayed outside, silent as a panther. She couldn’t hear him, but she knew he was there, waiting to see if he was needed.
‘You mustn’t tell Glenda,’ Doreen gasped again. ‘She’s asleep at last. It’s just angina. Nothing. It hurts and I wake up and you know how the night terrors take over.’
Of course she did. Night terrors must surely be reality for every person who’d been on the ridge that day, Tori thought. But as she held her, as she felt her thin frame shake, she thought this was more than nightmares. And maybe more than angina, too? Her hands were cold and sweaty and she could feel her tremors. She put her fingers on her neck, finding her carotid pulse. It was fast, erratic, frightening.
‘Doreen, I’m not sure this is just angina,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady, not wanting to put fear into the equation as well. ‘I think we should get this checked. Can I call an ambulance?’
‘No!’
‘At least let me call Jake.’
‘No,’ Doreen whispered, but she said it much less force-fully-and then she stopped breathing.
One minute she was sitting on the edge of her bed, half supported by Tori. The next she simply swayed backwards, falling onto her pillows, unconscious.
Tori’s fingers had been on her neck, feeling her pulse. Her hand followed her down-and there was no longer a pulse.
Doreen had said not to call Jake. That was five seconds ago. This was now.
‘Jake,’ she yelled at the top of her lungs. ‘Jake, I need you now.’
He was with her before she’d stopped yelling. She was still searching for a pulse, but with her other hand she was hauling Doreen’s legs back onto the bed, shoving away the bedclothes that were half covering her.
‘She said angina. I think now…cardiac arrest. No pulse.’
Jake was on the other side of the bed, like her, searching for a pulse, then hauling pillows away, lying her flat, checking her airway.
‘Breathe for her,’ Jake snapped, and took the neckline of Doreen’s flannelette nightgown and ripped it to the waist. His big hands rested on Doreen’s chest for a moment, steadied, then moved rhythmically into cardiac massage. ‘Breathe,’ he snapped at her again. ‘Tip her head back, hold her nose and fill her lungs with your breath. Twice. Then I pump. Come on, Tori…’
She needed no third bidding. She breathed while Jake took a short break from chest compressions. Fifteen pumps per minute, down, down, down, while Tori breathed and prayed and breathed and prayed and breathed and prayed.
They needed an ambulance, defibrillator, oxygen, adrenaline, but there was no time, no space, to call for help. If they didn’t get Doreen back now, no amount of equipment or expertise would help her.
No more deaths. Please, no. Not Doreen.
Breathe and pray. Breathe and pray.
‘Don’t panic,’ Jake said softly and he must have sensed rather than felt her surge of despair. ‘Steady, Tori, slow and steady, don’t stop breathing until you’ve seen her chest rise.’ He wasn’t altering his rhythm. Down, down, down, over and over, over and over.
How long now? Please, please…
‘Early days,’ Jake said. ‘Two minutes, no longer. Big breaths, Tori, deeper, I’m going harder.’
He did, and she heard the unmistakable sound of a rib cracking. She winced but kept on breathing, kept on breathing. Another crack. And then…
A ragged, heaving gasp, so harsh it caught them both by surprise. Doreen’s whole body shuddered. Tori drew back a little, hardly believing, but Doreen dragged in another breath and then another.
Life.
Jake was hauling her onto her side, clearing her mouth again, supporting her, making sure she didn’t gag, choke, while Tori sat back on her heels and stared and felt sick to the stomach. And then suddenly…not sick.
She could hear Doreen breathe.
Itsy bitsy spider, climbed up the waterspout…
Where had that come from? It was weird little song, a child’s tune from her past, and suddenly as she watched Jake work, as she waited to see that she was no longer needed, that she was free to go for help, the song was in her head. Her mother had taught it to her. She remembered sitting on her mother’s bed singing it. And then after her mother’s funeral, she remembered her father bringing home two puppies, one for her and one for Micki.
‘I’m calling him Itsy,’ she’d told her father, and Micki had called her puppy Bitsy. She thought suddenly, crazily and totally inappropriately, if Doreen lived, then she wanted another dog and she wanted to call him Itsy. It was part of her prayer.
Doreen’s breathing was steadying. Tori was grinning like a fool, and Jake’s smile was almost as wide as hers.
But he wasn’t relaxing yet. His smile was there but it was intent, and his attention was totally fixed on Doreen. He was moving on, she thought, totally concentrated on medical need. She, however, could back away a little. With Doreen’s breathing settling they could risk Tori leaving for a moment.
‘Call the ambulance,’ Jake said. ‘You have mobile cardiac units here?’
‘MICAs, yes. Mobile intensive-care ambulances.’
‘That’s what I want and I want them here yesterday. Then wake Rob. I want the first-aid kit he keeps. We have oxygen. Move, Tori.
She moved. She might be a vet and not a doctor but she didn’t have to be a doctor to know the situation was still grave. Something had stopped the flow of blood to Doreen’s heart, and that something was still not resolved.
‘See if Rob has dissolvable aspirin,’ Jake snapped, and then as Doreen’s eyes widened, focused, his tone changed. He sat down on the bed beside her and he took her hand in his.
‘Hey, Doreen, you’ve given us all one hell of a fright,’ he told her, as Tori headed for the door. ‘You passed out on us. I’m supposed to be an anaesthetist, not a cardiologist. And I’m not supposed to practise medicine in Australia. Are you trying to get me into trouble?’
He was wonderful, Tori thought dreamily. She fled.
When the ambulance arrived it came complete with its own paramedical team. They moved swiftly and efficiently, and Tori and the now wide-awake Rob were no longer needed. And Doreen still wouldn’t let them wake Glenda.
‘She hasn’t slept for weeks,’ she whispered. ‘I checked on her before I went to bed and she was sleeping like a baby. Please don’t wake her. I don’t need anyone to go with me.’
‘I’ll go with you,’ Tori said.
‘I don’t need anyone.’
‘Of course you do.’ Tori smiled down at her, the events of the night making her feel spacey and happy and floaty. Nothing would happen now. Jake had saved Doreen. And somehow…somehow it felt as if Jake had saved her. The leaden weight that had hung around her heart for six long months had lifted.
She glanced down as something brushed against her leg and it was Rusty, but he wasn’t brushing against her. He was simply positioning himself so he could press more closely against Jake.
You and me both, she thought mistily, and then Doreen’s hand reached out and took Jake’s and she thought, You and me, three?
‘Could you come with me?’ Doreen whispered to Jake, and the force she’d used to forbid them to wake Glenda was gone. She sounded frail again, and frightened. ‘You’re Old Doc’s son.’
‘I’m-’
‘That’s a really good idea,’ Rob said, sounding relieved. ‘It’d be great if she had a doctor go with her.’ In case she arrests again. It
was unspoken but definitely implied.
And for reasons of her own, Doreen agreed. ‘Old Doc’s son,’ Doreen whispered. ‘Combadeen has its doctor back.’ Her hold on Jake tightened. ‘It’s so good to have you home.’
Who could sleep after that? The ambulance left, with Doreen and Jake aboard. Despite Rob’s protestations Tori sat on the verandah and watched the dawn. Rusty was watching the road again, but things had changed. Who he was watching for had changed.
‘There’s no use changing your allegiance in that direction,’ she told him. ‘But as a transitional tool he’s very useful.’
The only problem was, Jake didn’t seem like a transitional tool. He felt permanent.
But, of course, he wasn’t.
When she’d run into him tonight he’d been shocked to the core, thrown out of kilter by what he’d heard about his father. He had a lot of thinking ahead of him.
She’d seen his face as he’d followed Doreen to the ambulance. There was no choice in what he had to do. He’d care for the old lady, he’d do his best, but he was thrown.
What had Doreen said? He’d come home.
He was a long way from home.
She was sitting outside Glenda’s bedroom. The French windows were open, and when finally she heard her stir she went in to tell her what had happened. To her surprise Glenda seemed almost relieved.
‘I knew something was wrong. I’ve been so worried, but all she’d do was worry about me. I had to pull her out of the fire. I was sure she’d collapsed and it wasn’t from the smoke but everyone was so busy… They just treated the burns.’ She sat up in bed and nursed her bad wrist and she looked almost happy. ‘And Old Doc’s son is with her. Jake. Jake’s home. I’m sure she’ll be fine.’
She had breakfast, refusing to be worried, her faith in Jake absolute. When Rob offered to take her to the hospital, to relieve Jake, to bring him home, she accepted with pleasure.
They left-and finally Tori went back to bed.
Jake’s home?
It didn’t make any sense at all, but it kept playing, and she slept with it in her head.
Dating The Millionaire Doctor Page 8
